


I Think We're Alone Now

by skeletalLanterns



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, F/F, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Rainbow Drinkers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletalLanterns/pseuds/skeletalLanterns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were so many rooms in the meteor that even in the sweep or so the meteor had been making its way through the furthest ring, and even the stretch of time during SGRUB that they had spent hiding from the demon, there were whole tracts of laboratory that she had never explored. It was down one such corridor that her nose had led her.</p><p>Written for Ladystuck 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think We're Alone Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cephied_Variable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephied_Variable/gifts).



> This was written for the wonderful Cephied_Variable. The prompt was as follows:
> 
> "I would really enjoy a Kanaya/Terezi fic with a focus on their complicated reactions to their Ancestors and the general teen melancholy and monotony of travelling on a meteor for three years with a bunch of hormonal teens who spend a lot of time kissing each other in increasingly confusion combinations. Please feel free to indulge all of your worst "teen drama meteor" instincts with this one!"
> 
> I'm not sure it's entirely what was asked for, but I hope it's enjoyable! Many thanks to the organisers of Ladystuck 2012.  
> Please see the notes at the end for potentially spoilering but more specific warnings.

The meteor was full of many corridors, staircases, hidden rooms and various nooks and crannies. If the company of the others became too much, and privacy were sought, there were plenty of places where one might hide away. There were so many rooms that even in the sweep or so the meteor had been making its way through the furthest ring, and even the stretch of time during SGRUB that they had spent hiding from the demon, there were whole tracts of laboratory that she had never explored. It was down one such corridor that her nose had led her. Terezi had become well practiced at finding her friends by scent, no matter how far away or how deep into the meteor they were. Each of them stood out against the grey of the lab like the fireworks let off on the dusk of the new sweep. Fragrant bursts of colour crossed and interwove into a rich tapestry, cherry and lavender and floral and fruity, with the very edges fringed with the subtle scent of rust and mustard. Yet the trail she was following was different. While the others overlapped and interacted and blended, this was a clean, clear smell, with defined edges. This made it easier to follow despite it being more than several days old, she told Officer Limescale, who was tucked under her arm in a sort of sling she’d fashioned from one of Rose’s scarves. Not the freshest, but still distinct enough to cut through the muddy tones that made up most of this particular corridor.

Limescale was a rookie, brought out on duty only a couple of nights ago, so had yet to learn many of the subtleties of investigation. Terezi explained as she went the essentiality of a sharp mind and a keen nose, and a keener blade. Her dragon cane swept in front of her, tap-tapping at shadows and pools of darkness. As she pursued the trail further, the scents of the others faded to a dull blur and she was able to point out to Limescale the details an untrained nose would miss. See how it fluctuates, becoming more intense and trailing away again? How the delicate bouquet of pine interacts with the sparkling sherbert white? The slight caress to the senses that is the scent of a scrap of patterned fabric?

There were gradually fewer doors lining the hallway down which they were making their way, and fewer branches to take. The investigation was drawing to a close, she told her passenger, who squeaked gently.

“I can hear you, you know.”

Terezi had been so engrossed in lecturing her young charge that she’d failed to notice the leftmost door open. A waft of crisp verdancy, almost like the skies on LOTAF had been, and cherry candy. She was wearing the dress Terezi liked the most, and her skin was barely glowing, but her expression was taut and almost hungry.

“I could hear your cane from at least ten corridors away,” said Kanaya, “and you seemed to be enthusiastically giving Mr Soapscum a lecture on the minutiae of proper police procedure.”

Terezi scowled and shifted the aforementioned scalemate onto her hip. “His name is Limescale. I don’t know why you insist on using the incorrect name! Are you going to let me in?”

Kanaya sighed, and the glow surrounding her became slightly brighter, cutting cleanly through the stale air of the meteor. “I did come down here to get some privacy, but since you’ve made so much of an effort to come and see me you may as well.”

There wasn’t much in the room. A small pile of books, a bundle of rather sad looking flowers and a pile of assorted fabric scraps in a multitude of colours. A small hand-sewing kit and a half-used bag of stuffing lay beside her fabric scissors, and an ornate hand mirror had been placed on one of the disused computer benches that ran round the edge of the room. Terezi picked up a square of grey and black twill from the top of the pile and idly pulled at it with her fingers. Though it smelt of coal and ash and burnt things, she could smell the heady scent of Kanaya lingering on it.

“What is it that you’re doing here anyway?” Terezi propped her cane by the door and sat down cross-legged facing the fabric pile, wedging Limescale between her thighs. Kanaya picked up the hand mirror and settled down amidst the offcuts. She examined her reflection and frowned, and her skin slowly turned troll-grey again, the glow dispersing from her skin and scattering like so much special stardust into the air.

“Practicing that, mainly. It’s hard to get a hang of and I can’t quite get it to stay. It takes a lot of concentration and it’s really quite inconvenient when I forget, as I quite often do, and illuminate the whole room. So I’m practicing until I have it under control.”

Limescale let out a soft squeak as Terezi rearranged her legs. “Why don’t you go and ask Porrim? We’re passing through a dreambubble now, or at least we were when I left the communal area. I’m sure she’d be happy to see you again.”

Kanaya lowered the mirror onto her lap. “We are? Surely the bubble would be more interesting than fussing over me. What about a change of scenery?”

“I’ve never been here before, have I?” 

The two fell silent. The fragment of cloth Terezi was fiddling with had begun to fray, and Kanaya retrieved her lipstick and began to apply it with swift, sure strokes. The room was silent but for the sound of breath and the gentle rustle of Kanaya’s skirts. The surface of the hand-mirror remained clear of any fogging.

“We’ve not seen you for quite a while. And unless you’ve been raiding the chests for anything Gamzee’s left behind, you won’t have eaten for a while.”

Kanaya paused in her application, but didn’t move from her position. “I’m doing quite well, thank you. I just needed to be alone. I do occasionally find this place quite claustrophobic.”

Terezi frowned and toyed with one of Limescale’s button eyes. There was a subtle tinge of lie to Kanaya’s words – not an outright untruth, but rather something left unsaid. She shuffled closer to the pile, tucking Limescale back into his sling. He would have to learn how to gather information with a subtle claw if he wanted to make it big in the legislacerators.

“Claustrophobic? Why not go exploring? And I am worried you’re not eating – and not just for you. You could put us all in danger by waking up in a bloodlust and tearing someone’s bloodpusher out.”

“I know,” Kanaya sighed. “Perhaps I should elaborate.”

It had been around a week and a half ago, Kanaya told her. The last time the meteor had passed through a dream bubble she had sought out Porrim, to talk to her about the problems with her luminosity. She eventually found her in a memory of a grove of trees, luxuriating in the patches of light that fell through the leaves. But she wasn’t alone. Aranea sat close at hand with her back against the trunk of the tree, ankles delicately crossed and her dead white eyes closed. A fashionable scarf had been tied gently around her neck, and Porrim’s lips were stained blue – but not, Kanaya had thought, with Aranea’s lipstick. She had hung back, embarrassed, but neither of the older trolls had noticed her. After that, she’d returned to the meteor and hadn’t ventured out since.

“I don’t know why it affected me so much.” The scent of pine grew stronger in the air; Kanaya was close to tears. “Well, of course, I mean, I do.”

“I guess it reminded you of Vriska,” Terezi said, stroking Kanaya’s hand. “I know. Sometimes I look at Aranea and I think of how Vriska could have ended up. She may have been less interesting, but at least she’d be alive.”

“Aranea is interesting,” said Kanaya, but she finally gave a wan smile. “But moving on from former unrequited crushes, it does go some way to explaining my loss of appetite. Every time I thought about food, my mind would take me back to that moment. And I think of Vriska and I think of Porrim and I –”

It was at this point that Kanaya lost the last of her composure, and began to sob. Gradually the white glow crept back into her skin, brighter than before. Terezi placed Limescale and his sling on the lab floor and moved to the pile, holding Kanaya in her arms as she shook. A small piece of fleece had attached itself to her horn, but her lipstick hadn’t smudged at all (she could smell it, inky black against smooth lips).

Terezi let out a soft shoosh. “I understand, but Kanaya, really, Porrim doesn’t need to eat. She’s dead.”

Kanaya huffed out a laugh. “Then what am I?”

“You’re undead. It’s two completely different things. You need to eat.”

Kanaya shifted around in the pile and looked up at Terezi, a look of apprehensive expectation on her delicate features. Kanaya had by this point fed on all of the live inhabitants of the meteor, bar Gamzee, and had even taken to drinking the bottles of blood that could mysteriously be found stuffed into chests. Terezi nodded, and a look of hunger briefly flashed across Kanaya’s face. As she scrambled to her feet, Terezi caught Limescale with her foot and he skittered across the floor, where he came to a stop beneath the computer bench. Neither one of them paid much attention. She wasn’t much in the mood to play legislacerator at that moment.

That particular heap of material was one of the more comfortable piles Terezi had ended up in. Her scalemates made a good one, if you were careful about the buttons, but the less she thought about the horn piles scattered around the meteor the better. She let herself fall into the soft material alongside Kanaya, who fussed over her, her long fingers arranging the offcuts and scraps just so.

They lay together for a while, Terezi’s hand gently caressing Kanaya’s cheek, the other hand clasping Kanaya’s wrist. There was no movement in the air, not even the weight of things unsaid. Terezi breathed in the rich black of Kanaya’s hair, the lushness of her dress and the soft scent of her skin. The glow was crisp yet subtle, casting intricate shadows in the lab. She wrinkled her nose as hair brushed over her face, and the pile shifted beneath them as Kanaya sat up and ghosted black lips over her neck. Right away she managed to find the sensitive spot just above the hollow of her clavicle, where the skin was thinner than in other places. While there was a thick bloodstem close beneath the surface, Terezi knew that Kanaya was in no danger of causing serious damage, as long as she kept her self-control. She swallowed, and her throat spasmed beneath Kanaya’s lips. She looked down, concern evident in her eyes.

“It’s ok,” Terezi murmured. “I’m fine, go on.”

She knew that it always worried Kanaya, that one time she’d lose control and drain the life from her dinner. And it would need to be only one time. And it wasn’t, as one of the humans had asked, that a single bite from a rainbow drinker would cause the bitten to become one of them. It was a rare troll, even on Alternia, who had the constitution to become a rainbow drinker. 

But Kanaya was hungry, starving even, and they both knew she couldn’t hold out for much longer. She licked her lips, once, and once more pressed her mouth to Terezi’s neck. 

Fangs broke through flesh, and the sensation was like two pinpricks of light in the darkness, clear and piercing. Like the taste of Kanaya’s skin. She slumped, limp and boneless, against Kanaya, who drew back her head and delicately wiped her mouth with a square of cloth. Blood gently oozed out of the two puncture wounds, pooling on Terezi’s chest and soaking into her shirt. 

While there was no breath against her skin, she felt a gentle tickle as Kanaya’s phosphorescence burgeoned, battling against her mental control. She focused, and Kanaya was there, sharper than anything in her luscious dress and her glowing skin. Terezi’s Alternian instincts were screaming that this was dangerous, she was in danger, but nevertheless she felt calm and calmed. She could smell her own blood on the corner of Kanaya’s mouth, both the tang and the teal. Kanaya stroked her cheek as she lowered her mouth to the bleeding wounds, licking with powerful and precise strokes. There was some sort of analgesic in her saliva, Terezi thought, or this is some sort of pale trance. She let the sensations overwhelm her, the tongue and the light and the pap and the scent of her, and drank her in. She was beautiful, and Terezi felt beautiful, and it seemed to her that the room and the meteor and the two of them were white, perfect white.

She must have dropped off, as the next thing she was aware of was a damp flannel dabbing gently at her neck. There was a tearing sound and the twin toothmarks were covered with an adhesive strip. Tentatively raising her hand to her neck, Terezi smiled languidly as she recognised by feel the Snoop Dogg Band-Aids Dave had alchemised after a few unexpected trips down the stairs. 

“Come,” said Kanaya, “your shirt is covered. I’ll find you something else.”

She could barely resist as Kanaya pulled the fabric over her head, letting her flop back down into the pile. She was aware of Kanaya fussing around the lab, putting away her sewing kit and wrapping up the mirror. Her glow was gentle and soothing, like the merest taste of sugar, illuminating the lab. Terezi’s arms were gently raised, and Kanaya tugged a lump of knitting with arms and a neckhole over her head, taking care not to snag the neckline on Terezi’s horns. Terezi looked blearily down. It appeared to have an adult human’s face on it, with a long white beard and a wide, grey hat. He looked kindly and his eyes seemed to sparkle in the dim light. (This was because, of course, Kanaya had embroidered them with metallic thread. Terezi thought this was a fine attention to detail.)

Kanaya looked amused. “It seemed to amuse Rose, but sadly she’s neglected to wear it. It does get chilly down here so I brought it along in case of human visitors.” Trolls were hardier than their softer human companions, and after all Kanaya no longer felt the cold. She bent down and retrieved Limescale from his hiding place, brushing the thin coating of dust off him and handing him to Terezi.

The sweater was soft and soothing, and Limescale was nestled in her arms. Kanaya gently settled down onto the pile, tucking her arm around Terezi’s ribcage and nestling her face against the unbitten side of her neck. They found a comfortable position, fitting neatly together, and the two drifted into a dreamless sleep. The meteor continued on its journey, endless grey corridors transforming into bright towers and lush forests, seafronts and secret rooms and sheer cliff faces. The two slept on, untouched by the thoughts and memories of their ancestors, surrounded by colourful fabric and the endless corridors.

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references to Kanaya's feelings for Vriska, possibly disordered eating, and blood drinking.


End file.
